Reviews, Essays and Analysis of Film and Art By Adam Scovell

Tag: BFI DVD releases

Classical traditions and feminist ideologies collide and intertwine in Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s Riddles of the Sphinx (1977). It’s instantly clear from its opening “contents” page that the film isn’t simply going to be a piece of narrative cinema, nor is it going to be purely avant-garde. With the increasing use of the term Essay Film within the analysis of cinema, Mulvey’s film is … Continue reading Riddles of the Sphinx (1977) – Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen (BFI).

There’s something startling about just how inventive cinema was in the early days of its creation. Whereas other artistic mediums have taken hundreds of years to bear fruit, film seemed to have caught on to what it was about mere years after its very conception. Ranging from 1901 to 1908, the films in the BFI Fairy Tales release show a frank endorsement of both storytelling … Continue reading BFI Fairy Tales – Early Colour Stencil Films From Pathé (1901 – 1908)

The films of Jacques Tati so often place their main protagonist out of time and out of step with his various scenarios that it was to be expected that Tati’s debut feature film Jour de Fête (1949) was to bask in a similar situation. However there’s a sense of naivety due to various factors within the film that makes Tati’s debut seem not quite up … Continue reading Jour de Fête – Jacques Tati (1949), BFI.